Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Ignite!

11/29/2009
Lecture 10: BCS - 1

Business Connectivity Services

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it
should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION. 1
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Ignite! 11/29/2009
Lecture 10: BCS - 2

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it
should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION. 2
Ignite - SharePoint 2010 Developer Workshop Lecture 10: BCS - 4

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it
should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION. 4
Ignite - SharePoint 2010 Developer Workshop 29.11.2009
Lecture 10: BCS - 5

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks
and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of
Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to
be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION. 5
MS Confidential : SharePoint 2010 Developer Workshop (Beta1) Lecture 10: BCS - 6
Lecture 9: BCS - 6

• Business Connectivity Services lives in the “Composites” section of the blue workloads circle
• Composites =
• Building robust business applications without any/much involvement from IT (IT
Pros/developers)
• Easily integrate and consume external data not resident within SharePoint
• Also has a developer extensibility point to provide lots of customized options

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• Business Connectivity Services is composed of many pieces

• Office Client – By connecting to SharePoint, Office clients can consume data from the external
systems
• SharePoint Server – SharePoint houses the external content types (ECTs) which is the backbone
of the entire system
• External Data – this is the source of where the data is coming from

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• Business objects such as customer, product, invoice, etc

• Created in SharePoint Designer or Visual Studio 2010
• May also be defined in a file and uploaded
• Forms the basis of an external list
• Cornerstone of enabling BCS

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MS Confidential : SharePoint 2010 Developer Workshop (Beta1) Lecture 10: BCS - 9
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SPD
1. Create a SharePoint site
2. Launch SPD
3. Create a new Business Data Source
4. Select the "shim" (database, web service, etc)
5. Create some External Content types
6. Save External Content types
7. Create an action and profile page
8. Generate Related Items

BDC
1. Open Central Administration
2. Click Manage Services on Server
3. Ensure the Business Data Catalog Service is Started
4. Return to CA Home Page
5. Click Manage Service Applications
6. Verify that you have a BdcServiceApplication and
BdcServiceApplicationProxy running.
7. Click on the Business Data Catalog Service
8. Click the Manage button on the ribbon
9. Show models

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• This slide is designed to present the spectrum of possible solutions

• “Simple” Solutions are the ones you create using SPD and the browser.
• “Advanced” Solutions use Visual Studio. This can be from scratch or exporting
from SPD and importing to VS

• Once you have External Content Types, you can use them in many ways

• External list
• Read/write to external data defined by External Content Type
• Views based on the “Finder” methods
• Pre and post query filters
• Actions appear on ECB
• BDC Web Parts
• BDC Columns
• Supplementing User Profiles

• SPD support is for the designer. VS for the developer..

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This slide shows the different levels of solutions that you can build, as well as the different places they can
reside (client/server)… including what options & tools are available for each solution.

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Build 1
• Everything begins with a SharePoint Site. The “OBA Designer” feature must be enable for anything except simple External List. The OBA Designer feature (which will be renamed to fit with
BCS) provide 8 Document Libraries that house all of the artifacts necessary for the solutions.

Build 2
• The “Solution Designer” uses the SharePoint Designer to create some External Content Types against an the CRM system so that contact information can be surfaced in MS Outlook. The
work involves creating some forms for Outlook and some actions that can be taken against the External Content Types.
• Layouts: XML files that define form pages similar to web part pages in the client
• Actions: Ribbon component definitions for Office clients
• Contexts: Defines relationships and states

Build 3
• The Client Extensions are what allows for the deployment of the External Content Types, Forms, Actions, and Outlook Add-In to the client. Client extensions are essentially a .VSTO package
file.

Build 4
• The Solution Designer uses SPD to Publish the solution to a SharePoint Site. Today the publishing process is a PowerShell script that creates the .VSTO file. This will go away in the future.
There will also be APIs that expose the publishing process.

Build 5
• The Process wraps up everything that the client will need to use the solution. Manifest and add-in are standard VSTO components. Office Integration Runtime (OIR) files are specific to
BCS and used by the client-side BCS components.

Build 6
• These are components that are common to all BCS solutions
• OBA Client Application Manifest: Solution Manifest
• Entity Model: External Content Types
• Subscriptions: Define data to cache on the client
• Pre/Post Deployment: Actions to take pre/post deployment (e.g., create a set of InfoPath forms for the client views)

Build 7
• The “Solution Developer” wants to add a solution to the site based on data from the ERP system that should surface in Excel. He uses Visual Studio to create External Content Types and an
Excel Add-In.

Build 8
• The Solution Developer publishes the solution to the Client Extensions. The client will get both solutions with no additional effort.
• He runs the Publishing script and his custom add-in is added to the .VSTO package.

Build 9
• Now the Solution Designer wants to add the capability to use the CRM data in MS Word for creating invoices. He updates his solution and deploys it.

Build 10
User goes to site and can download the package through ClickOnce (a link to the .VSTO file) or it can be deployed directly to the client machine by Operations.

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MS Confidential : SharePoint 2010 Developer Workshop (Beta1) Lecture
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This slide introduces the SharePoint Workspace as the primary client for SharePoint.

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Visual Studio 2010 BDC Designer allows you to develop, debug and deploy
Business Data Connectivity Models using the LobSystem type “.NET
Connector”. This type is used for:

1) Aggregation scenarios (across back-ends, across multiple calls to same

backend, read from one back-end write to another)
2) Custom/Complex Data Transformations,
3) Custom Security (e.g. where SSO falls short)
4) Custom Business Logic/Rules needed outside the back-end (don’t have good
example of this)

In addition Visual Studio 2010 BDC designer allows to import models created by
SPD customize them, package them and deploy them through the Visual Studio

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Ignite - SharePoint 2010 Developer Workshop Lecture29.11.2009
10: BCS - 18

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks
and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of
Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to
be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION. 18
MS Confidential : SharePoint 2010 Developer Workshop (Beta1) Lecture 10: BCS - 19
Lecture 9: BCS - 19

This slide talks about the different security options available within BCS solutions

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MS Confidential : SharePoint 2010 Developer Workshop (Beta1) Lecture 10: BCS - 20
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Ignite - SharePoint 2010 Developer Workshop Lecture 10: BCS - 21

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it
should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION. 21
Arjun Ohri Lecture 10: BCS - 22

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Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Ignite! Lecture11/29/2009
10: BCS - 23

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it
should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION. 23